Thurstle Island: Cove Town

Rather than a street map, I opted for a relationship map.

I want Cove Town to be a place for scheming. In contrast to the traps and monsters of the island's dungeons, the conflict and maneuvering in town is primarily social. Different groups control access to critical resources. Supplies, information and opportunities to hire help require making friends with the right people. 

How it Works

I recently solicited the advice of the OSR subreddit on what makes a good starting town. My favorite suggestion was to use the guidelines formatted as the "Gygax 75 Challenge" by Ray Otus based on an old Gary article. The challenge recommends the following components: 

• Town Map: Since politics are more important to me than geographic proximity, I drew mine as relationship web. I'll also give them Kevin Campbell village cards as a visual reference on what shops and services are available. 

Kevin Campbell via Dyson

Zine How-to

My wife works for the Smithsonian's design museum and recently produced a video on the history of zines with a brief tutorial on how to make one (using a pocketmod template).

While the video is focused on zines created by various social movements rather than gamers, I think it may be of interest to folks in our community. 

Check it out, let me know what you think!

DM Tool: Location Table

A couple years ago, I was working on a campaign map and in my brainstorming process I started writing down every interesting location that I could think of. Some basic (city, bridge, gallows etc) others more obscure (tallow mine, petrified forest, leper colony). I filled an entire page.

Ever since, this has been one of the pages in my DM notebook that I use most. Whenever I need to think of a site for an encounter I just scan the list to find an interesting+fitting option. I've populated maps by adding coordinates and rolling for locations.

It's a basic tool, but when I hear other DMs talk about the resources they keep handy, this one never comes up. Are other people using something similar? If so, would you share a copy?

Anyhow, I just migrated to a new notebook, and I took a couple minutes to re-create the list. It's got 250+ entries but I'd love to fill another page or two. I'm posting this to reddit in hopes the hive mind will help me populate another page or two.

What are some places it would be fun to go in an RPG?

Thurstle Island: To the Lighthouse

To the southeast of Thurstle Island, on a little spur of rock, a lighthouse spears out of the sea. Its beacon went out years ago but as Gothic colonization accelerates and the Northmen thegns smuggle more contraband, its strategic importance is growing. 

The Situation

Many years ago, after the earthquake, when the Templar were abandoning their fort, the supply packets to the lighthouse stopped. Trapped at his post, the miserable monk who tended the light starved to death and, soon after, so did the lamp. 

Some time later, en route to an island prison further out to sea, a Gothic ship smashed on the unlit rock. An ebony coffin, containing the vampire Drusilla, bobbed ashore, and the lighthouse found a new master. She enthralled the few sailors who came ashore and now feeds on them just a little every night. The sailors have all gone mad.

Drusilla is trapped on the island. She cannot fly over water and though she needn't breath and could walk to shore on the seabed, she has no way to bring her coffin with her. She will seek to threaten or negotiate anyone arriving on the rock to take her to Thurstle Island. Her husband was also on the ship that stranded her here, but his coffin was made of iron and chained closed. She desperately wants to rescue him.

Karl Alexander Wilke from Die Muskete magazine 1926

This is intended as a low-level dungeon. The grunts are not very threatening. The boss almost certainly outmatches the player characters but wants to negotiate. Gaining control of the island could be a major boon to the players.

Thurstle Island: Old Forest

The Old Forest fills the lowland interior of Thurstle Island. Travel between the clifftop locations around the perimeter of the island usually has to pass through the forest. 

The trees of this wood are crowded, gnarled and tired. Their creak and rustle hide other noises and it is easy to be surprised when moving along the paths. The trees are not friendly to visitors and many of the plants (from an older post) that live under them are deadly in their own right. 

How it Works

This is the central "blob" of the Thurstle Island map. It is a pathcrawl maze. Player characters will need to find routes through the wood in order to reach other parts of the island. 

• Most of the nodes are features of interest that are useful or interesting rather than dangerous.
• Conflicts and obstacles are concentrated on the paths. The first time, player characters travel across them they will trigger the keyed encounter. 
• If they find a way to placate the Druids, many of the more dangerous encounters will be avoided.
• Once the PC's have visited a node, they can "fast-travel" there with a single wandering encounter role
• DM Note: When moving over paths that have already been explored, any encounters that come up will be designed for quick resolution i.e. Druids throw javelins then flee into the woods. I don't want to bog down our gaming time re-hashing the same territory. 
• Many of the node locations contain stele (drawn in on the map) . These will reveal useful parts of the island's history and give clues on how to defeat the boss enemies. They will also grant XP bounties when discovered.

Over the Garden Wall

Ultra-Bastard D&D: Wounds and Infection

Pseudo-Galen (15th Century)

For several weeks, I have wrestled my wound and infection rules for Ultra-Bastard. Seeing Josh's recent post on MERP-like wound tables last week and Alex's a couple weeks before that, it seems that this is a topic that's in the air. 

This is the Wounds & Infection option I promised in my hit points post back in March. 

• When an attack deals more damage than you have hit points left, your hit points are reduced to zero and you must roll on the wounds table. Hit points do not go below zero
• When a wound receives care (bandages, a sling etc.) you no longer suffer from the temporary effect, but must apply the permanent effect. 
• For the purposes of rolls on the wounds table, count every wound that has not been treated. Wounds that have been treated are not added.
• Some enemy attacks may make you roll with an additional plus on the wounds table. 
• Some attacks are gross and cause infections. While infected you cannot regain hit points from rest. Some infections grant saves and some get worse over time.
• Optional: Limbs shall be splintered. Once per character (for their whole life) when a blow would kill you, you can instead permanently lose a limb (of course you have the options of a hook, peg-leg, mechanical claw etc.)
• Optional: If an attack reduces you to exactly zero hit points, when you are healed, your hit point maximum is increased by 1 (subject to the hit point cap).